xz utils backdoor would have been carnage though. it almost succeeded too.

firefox freezes
kill PID with the highest CPU use
youtube tabs all crash
reload youtube video(s)
repeat in a couple of days

i’m in tumblr and the posts about that vote was circulating there from day one, screencaps steadily increasing in vote number while i never saw it on reddit/lemmy or other places with some kind of algorithm as opposed to the simple reverse chronological feed that is tumblr’s current default. i read the notes - people were reposting it elsewhere and it just disappear into the void. it was around 70% but was also very fast approaching the deadline when it exploded in popularity because of that guy.

in a way algorithms both almost killed and saved that petition - but there was a concerted, months long active action by uncountable number of people, a tremendous effort to save the petition and keep it going.

to think that this came out of 2010’s microwaving grapes videos…